Stacey Abrams has filed a lawsuit seeking to immediately begin fundraising for her campaign for governor under a state law that prevents her gubernatorial leadership committee from doing so.
Abrams is requesting to take advantage of a new kind of fundraising committee created by Georgia lawmakers last year, which her opponent, the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, has already been able to make use of. Called a leadership committee, it allows certain people and groups to accept unlimited contributions. Giving to direct candidate committees, on the other hand, is limited to $7,600 apiece for the primary and general elections and $4,500 for any runoff election.
Under the law, the committees can be formed by the governor and lieutenant governor, opposing major party nominees, and both party caucuses in the state house and senate. The committees can coordinate with candidate campaigns, unlike most other political action committees.
Although Georgia has not yet officially approved Abrams as the Democratic party nominee, Abrams argues that because no one filed to run against her in the 24 May Democratic primary and because write-in votes are not allowed, she became the nominee when qualifying closed.
“Ms Abrams – the sole qualified and declared Democratic candidate for Governor of Georgia – and her campaign committee will be unable to operate, control, chair, or otherwise use One Georgia, a leadership committee … to support her campaign without credible and justified threat and fear of legal proceedings being instituted against Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit said.
“As a direct consequence, Plaintiffs will suffer ongoing and irreparable injury to their ability to use political speech to advocate for Ms Abrams’s campaign, especially compared to her chief opponent, sitting Governor Brian P Kemp.”
Georgia has not yet approved Abrams’s leadership due to disputes over whether she qualified as a nominee before the primary, even though the state’s Democratic party chair, representative Nikema Williams, has recognized her candidacy and recognized Abrams as the sole nominee.
In an affidavit, Williams wrote, “The only candidate who qualified with DPG [Democratic Party of Georgia] to run for the office of Governor of the State of Georgia prior to the end of the 2022 candidate qualifying period on March 11, 2022 is Stacey Y Abrams.”
Abrams said in court pleadings that when a lawyer for her contacted the state ethics commission to confirm that her leadership committee could begin raising and spending money before 24 May, a commission lawyer said Adams’s legal team first needed to seek legal advice from Georgia’s attorney general, Chris Carr, and secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, as to whether state law considers Abrams the nominee. In the absence of any further clarification since, Abrams’s team filed the lawsuit seeking a temporary order to be allowed to raise money right away.
Meanwhile, Kemp created the Georgians First leadership committee after signing the law and had raised $2.3m through January.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’s campaign manager, said that Kemp’s early fundraising advantage causes “severe harm” to the fairness of the election.
“Early fundraising supports later fundraising by demonstrating a candidate’s political viability and widespread appeal, particularly in a high-dollar statewide election in a swing state like Governor of Georgia,” she wrote.
